Our first guest post this week is from Adrianne, a fiery and soothing redhead who owns a large portion of my heart. Adrianne and I both love Jesus, our families, and each other- and neither of us sees much reason to change out of pajamas, ever. These four commonalities have proven to be enough to forge and sustain one of the most rewarding friendships I’ve ever enjoyed. Adrianne wrote some kind things about me in this post, which was sort of against the rules. My instinct is to explain or joke them away. But instead, I am going to try to…

My friend, Chimmy, is a contemporary poet. She chooses and molds words like a sculptor with clay. She tastes words and adds or omits them, then stirs them up like a master chef. She flings words around violently sometimes and sets them down gently other times, like a dancer uses her arms to translate music. And the reason Chimmy’s brilliant is that she hears the music of life clearly, so she’s able to tell the truth of it, sharply and sweetly. I always think of artists as translators…they observe and experience life first, and then use their medium to try…

My deepest fear is that my relationship with God is a fair weather friendship. I suspect that I love God mainly because He’s taken it pretty easy on me. I wonder sometimes if my prayers and rituals and devotion are really a frantic dance to keep Him placated and distracted enough to leave my family well enough alone. Because I suspect that if He took one of my children, I’d turn on Him, fast and furious. And so my faith has always been tenuous and conditional. But when Sunny, a long lost high school friend and the single mother of…